JPMorgan Chase, Amazon and Berkshire Hathaway to disband health venture

The goal of the venture was to make US health care more affordable, accessible and transparent

A joint venture between Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase to make US health care more affordable has folded. AP

Haven, a joint venture of Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase formed three years ago to make US health care more affordable, announced on Monday it will disband.

The venture will end in February, Haven announced on its website, adding that the three companies plan to "continue to collaborate informally to design programs tailored to address the specific needs of their own employee populations."

"In the past three years, Haven explored a wide range of healthcare solutions, as well as piloted new ways to make primary care easier to access, insurance benefits simpler to understand and easier to use and prescription drugs more affordable," the companies said in a statement.

Jeff Bezos's Amazon, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway and the financial giant JPMorgan Chase had announced in 2019 they would create a nonprofit healthcare plan to "provide US employees and their families with simplified, high-quality and transparent health care at a reasonable cost."

The trio aimed to become a disruptor in the healthcare industry, like Amazon has been in retail, using their combined data, technology, buying power and customer contacts to improve delivery while cutting costs.

The companies did not specify how many people would benefit under the new program, but a source told AFP that at the time, domestic employees of the companies and their dependents likely amount to at least a million people nationwide.

Rising healthcare costs in the US, which is the only major economy that does not provide universal medical coverage to its citizens, is a perennial political issue that is expected to be on the agenda for President-elect Joe Biden when he takes office this month.